Майн Рид
The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse
Chapter Seventy Seven.
The Writing on the Maguey
The skill of the trackers was no longer called in need; the war-trail was as easily followed as a toll-road: a blind man could have guided himself along such a well-trodden highway.
Our rate of speed was now ruled by the capacity of our horses. Alas! their power was nearly at an end. They had been two days and a night under the saddle, with but a few hours to refresh themselves by food or rest: they could not hold out much longer.
One by one they began to lag, until the greater number of them followed with tottering step hundreds of yards in the rear.
It was in vain to contend against nature. The men were still willing, though they too were wearied to death; but their horses were quite done up – even whip and spur could force them no farther. Only my own matchless steed could have continued the journey. Alone I might have advanced, but that would have been madness. What could I have accomplished alone?
Night was fast coming down: it was already twilight. I saw by the clouded sky we should have no moon. We might follow the trail with our waxen torches – not yet burnt out – but that would no longer be safe. For myself, I was reckless enough to have risked life in any way, but the lives of my comrades were not mine. I could not give them – I should not wastefully fling them away.
Reluctantly I glided from my saddle, gave my steed to the grass, and sat down upon the earth.
My followers coming up, said not a word, but picketing their horses, seated themselves around me. One by one they stretched themselves along the sward, and in ten minutes all were asleep.
I alone could not sleep; the fever of unrest was upon me; the demon of thought would not let me close my eyes. Though my orbs ached with the long protracted vigil, I thought that “not all the drowsy syrups of the world” could have given me repose at that moment. I felt as one who suffers under delirium, produced by the intoxicating cup, the fearful mania-a-potu. I could neither sleep nor rest.
I could not even remain seated. I rose to my feet and wandered around, without heed of where I was going; I strode over the recumbent forms of my sleeping companions; I went among the horses; I paced backwards and forwards along the banks of the stream.
There was a stream – a small arroyo or rivulet. It was this that had caused me to halt in that particular spot; for wild as were my thoughts, I had enough of reason left to know that we could not encamp without water. The sight of the arroyo had decided my wavering resolution, and upon its banks, almost mechanically, I had drawn bridle and dismounted.
I once more descended to the bed of the stream, and, raising the water in the palms of my hands, repeatedly applied it to my lips and temples. The cool liquid refreshed me, and seemed to soothe both my nerves and my spirit.
After a time, both felt calmer, and I sat down upon the bank, and watched for a while the clear rivulet rippling past over its bed of yellow sand and glistening pebbles of quartz. The water was perfectly diaphanous; and, though the sun was no longer shining, I could see tiny silver fish, of the genus hyodon, sporting themselves in the lowest depths of the pool. How I envied them their innocent gambols, their life of crystal purity and freedom! Here, in this remote prairie stream, dwelt not the alligator, nor the ravenous garfish; here came no dolphin or shark to chase them, no tyrant of the waters to put them in fear. To be envied, indeed, such an insouciant, happy existence!
I watched them for a long while, till I thought that my eyes were growing heavy, and, after all, I might seep. The murmur of the arroyo helped to increase this inclination to repose, and, perhaps, I might have slept; but at that moment chancing to look around, my eyes rested upon an object that again drove sleep far away, and I was soon as wakeful as ever.
Close to where I had seated myself grew a large plant of the Mexican aloe (agave Americana). It was the wild maguey, of course, but of a species with broad fleshy leaves of dark-green colour, somewhat resembling the maguey of cultivation. I noticed that one of the great blades of the plant was bruised down, and the spine, which had terminated it, torn off.
All this would not have drawn my attention: I was already aware that the Indians had made a halt where we were encamped, and their sign was plenteous around – in the tracks of their animals, and the broken branches of trees. One of their horses or mules might have munched at the maguey in passing; and, viewing the bruised blade from a distance, I should have hazarded just such a conjecture. But my eyes were close to the plant, and, to my astonishment, I observed that there was writing upon the leaf!
I turned over upon my knees, and seizing the huge blade, bent it down before me, so as to obtain a better view of its surface. I read: —
“Captured by Comanches—a war-party with many captives—women and children—ay de mi! pobres niñas! north-west from this place. Saved from death; alas! I fear– ”
The writing ended abruptly. There was no signature, but it needed not that. I had no doubts about who was the writer; in fact, rude as was the chirography – from the materials used – I easily identified the hand. It was Isolina de Vargas who had written.
I saw that she had torn off the terminal spine, and using it as a stylus, had graven those characters upon the epidermis of the plant.
Sweet subtle spirit! under any guise I could have recognised its outpourings.
“Saved from death” – thank Heaven for that! – “alas! I fear.” Oh, what feared she? Was it worse than death? that terrible fate – too terrible to think of?
She had broken off, without finishing the sentence. Why had she done so?
The sheet was broad – would have held many more words – why had she not written more? Did she dread to tell the cause of her fear? or had she been interrupted by the approach of some of her tyrant captors? O merciful Heaven! save me from thought!
I re-read the words over and over: there was nothing more. I examined the other leaves of the plant – on both sides, concave and convex, I examined them – not a word more could I find. What I had read was all she had written.
Chapter Seventy Eight.
The Southern Savage
I need not tell how deeply I was affected by the unexpected communication. All at once were decided a variety of doubts; all at once was I made aware of the exact situation.
Isolina still lived – that was no longer doubtful; and the knowledge produced joy. More than this: she was still uninjured – able to think, to act, to write – not only living, but well. The singular “billet” was proof of all this. Another point – her hands must have been free – her hands at least, else how could she have traced those lines? and with such a pencil? It argued indulgence – perhaps kind treatment on the part of her captors.
Another point yet. She knew I was in pursuit. She had seen me, then, as I galloped after. It was her cry I had heard as the steed dashed into the chapparal. She had recognised, me, and called back. She knew I would still be following; she knew I was following, and for me was the writing meant. Sweet subtle spirit!
Once more I devoured the welcome words; but my heart grew heavy as I pondered over them. What had caused her to break off so abruptly? What was it her intention to have said? Of what was she in fear? It was thinking about this that caused the heaviness upon my heart and forced me to give way to horrid imaginings.
Naturally my thoughts reverted to her captors; naturally I reflected upon the character of the prairie savage – so different from that of the forest Indian, opposite as is the aspect of their homes – and perhaps influenced by this very cause, though there are many others. Climate – contact with Spanish civilisation, so distinct from Saxon – the horse – conquest over white foes – concubinage with white and beautiful women, the daughters of the race of Cortez: all these have combined to produce in the southern Indian a spiritual existence that more resembles Andalusia than England – more like Mexico than Boston or New York.
Psychologically speaking, there is not so much difference between Paris and the prairies – between the habitat of the Bal Mabille and the horse-Indian of the plains. No cold ascetic this – no romantic savage, alike celebrated for silence and continence – but a true voluptuary, gay of thought and free of tongue – amorous, salacious, immoral. In nine cases out of ten, the young Comanche is a boastful Lothario as any flaneur that may be met upon the Boulevards; the old, a lustful sinner – women the idol of both. Women is the constant theme of their conversation, their motive for every act. For these they throw the prairie dice; for these they race their swift mustangs. To win them, they paint in hideous guise; to buy them, they steal horses; to capture them, they go to war!
And yet, with all their wanton love, they are true tyrants to the sex. Wife they have none – for it would be sheer sacrilege to apply this noble title to the “squaw” of a Comanche. Mistress is scarcely a fitter term – rather say slave. Hers is a hard lot indeed; hers it is to hew the wood and draw the water; to strike the tent and pitch it; to load the horse and pack the dog; to grain the skin and cure the meat; to plant the maize, the melon, squash; to hoe and reap them; to wait obsequious on her lounging lord, anticipate his whim or wish, be true to him, else lose her ears or nose– for such horrid forfeiture is, by Comanche custom, the punishment of conjugal infidelity!
But hard as is the lot of the native wife, harder still is that of the white captive. ’Tis hers to endure all the ills enumerated, with still another – the hostility of the squaw herself. The white captive is truly the slave of a slave, the victim of a treble antipathy – of race, of colour, of jealousy. Ofttimes is she beaten, abused, mutilated; and rarely does the apathetic lord interfere to protect her from this feminine but fiend-like persecution.
These were not imaginings; they were not fancies begot in my own brain. Would they had been so! Too well did I know they were facts – horrid realities.
Can you wonder that sleep was shaken from my eyelids? – that I could not think of rest or stay, till I had delivered my loved one – my betrothed – from the danger of such a destiny?
All thought of sleep was banished – even weariness forsook me. I felt fresh as if I had slept; my nerves were strung for emprise. It was but the excitement renewed by what I had read – the impatience of a new and keen apprehension.
I would have mounted and gone forward, spurning rest and sleep; regardless of danger, would I have followed; but what could I do alone?
Ay, and what with my few followers?
Ha! I had not thought of this; up to that moment, I had not put this important question, and I had need to reflect upon the answer. What if we should overtake this band of brigands? Booty-laden as they were, and cumbered with captives, surely we could come up with them, by night or by day; but what then? Ay, what then?
There were nine of us, and we were in pursuit of a war-party of at least one hundred in number! – one hundred braves armed and equipped for battle – the choice warriors of their tribe – flushed with late success, and vengeful against ourselves on account of former defeat. If conquered, we need look for no mercy at their hands; if conquered – how could it be otherwise? Nine against a hundred! How could we conquer?
Up to this moment, I say, I had not thought of the result I was borne along by only one impulse – the idea of overtaking the steed, and rescuing his rider from her perilous situation. It was only within the hour that her peril had assumed a new phase; only an hour since we had learned that she had escaped from one danger to be brought within the influence of another.
At first had I felt joy, but the feeling was of short existence, for I now recognised in the new situation a greater peril than that she had outlived. She had been rescued from death to become the victim of dishonour!
Chapter Seventy Nine.
A Subterranean Fire
In the midst of my meditations, night descended upon the earth. It promised to be a moonless night. A robe of sable clouds formed a sombre lining to the sky, and through this neither moon nor stars were visible.
It grew darker apace, until in the dim light I could scarcely distinguish the forms of my companions – neither men nor horses, though both were near me.
The men were still asleep, stretched along the grass in various attitudes, like so many bodies upon a battle-field. The horses were too hungry to sleep – the constant “crop-crop” told that they were greedily browsing upon the sward of gramma-grass that, by good fortune, grew luxuriantly around. This would be the best rest for them, and I was glad to think that this splendid provender would in a few hours recruit their strength. It was the chondrosium foeneum, the favourite food of horses and cattle, and in its effects upon their condition almost equal to the bean or the oat. I knew it would soon freshen the jaded animals, and make them ready for the road. At least in this there was some consolation.
Notwithstanding the pre-occupation of my thoughts, I began to be sensible of a physical discomfort, which, despite their low latitude, is often experienced upon the southern prairies – cold. A chill breeze had set in with the night, which in half-an-hour became a strong and violent wind, increasing in coldness as in strength.
In that half-hour the thermometer must have fallen at least fifty Fahrenheit degrees; and such a phenomenon is not rare upon the plains of Texas. The wind was the well-known “norther” which often kills both men and animals, that chance to be exposed to its icy breath.
I have endured the rigour of a Canadian winter – have crossed the frozen lakes – have slept upon a snow-wreath amidst the wild wastes of Rupert’s Land; but I cannot remember cold more intensely chilling than that I have suffered in a Texan norther.
This extreme does not arise from the absolute depression of the thermometer – which at least is but a poor indicator of either heat or cold – I mean the sensation of either. It is more probably the contrast springing from the sudden change – the exposure – the absence of proper clothing or shelter – the state of the blood – and other like circumstances, that cause both heat and cold to be more sensibly felt.
I had ofttimes experienced the chill blast of the norther, but never more acutely than upon that night. The day had been sweltering hot – the thermometer at noon ranging about the one-hundredth Fahrenheit degree, while in the first hour of darkness it could not have been far above the twentieth. Had I judged by my sensations, I should have put it even lower. Certainly it had passed the freezing-point, and sharp sleet and hail were borne upon the wings of the wind.
With nerves deranged from want of rest and sleep – after the hot day’s march – after the perspiration produced by long exposure upon the heated surface of the burnt prairie – I perhaps felt the cold more acutely than I should otherwise have done. My blood seemed to stagnate and freeze within my veins.
I was fain to wrap around my body a buffalo-robe, which some careless savage had dropped upon the trail. My followers were not so well furnished; starting as we had done, without any thought of being absent for the night, no preparation had been made for camping out. Only a portion of them chanced to have their blankets strapped upon the cantles of their saddles. These were now the fortunate ones.
The norther had roused all of them from their slumbers – had awaked them as suddenly as a douche of cold water would have done; and one and all were groping about in the darkness – some seeking for their blankets – others for such shelter as was afforded by the lee-side of the bushes.
Fortunately there were some saddle-blankets, and these were soon dragged from the backs of the horses. The poor brutes themselves suffered equally with their owners; they stood cowering under the cold, with their hips to the cutting blast, their limbs drawn close together, and their flanks shaggy and shivering. Some of them half sheltered themselves behind the bushes, scarce caring to touch the grass at their feet.
It would have been easy enough to make a fire; there was dry wood in plenty near the spot, and of the best kind for burning – the large species of mezquite. Some of the men were for kindling fires at once, regardless of consequences; but this design was overruled by the more prudent of the party. The trappers were strongly against it. Cold as was the night, and dark, they knew that neither the norther nor the darkness would deter Indians from being abroad. A party might be out upon the prowl; the very buffalo-skin we had picked up might bring a squad of them back; for it was the grand robe of some brave or chief, whose whole life-history was delineated in hieroglyphical painting upon its inner surface. To have made a fire, might have cost us our lives; so alleged the trappers, Rube and Garey. It would be better to endure the cold, than risk our scalps; so counselled they.
But for all that, Rube had no idea of being starved to death. He could kindle a fire, and burn it upon an open prairie, without the least fear of its being seen; and in a few minutes’ time he had succeeded in making one, that could not have been discovered by the most sharp-sighted Indian in creation. I had watched the operation with some interest.
He first collected a quantity of dead leaves, dry grass, and short sticks of the mezquite-tree – all of which he placed under his saddle-blanket, to prevent the rain and sleet from wetting them. This done, he drew out his bowie-knife, and with the blade “crowed” a hole into the turf, about a foot deep, and ten inches or a foot in diameter. In the bottom of this hole he placed the grass and leaves, having first ignited them by means of his flint, steel, and “punk” tinder – all of which implements formed part of the contents of Rube’s pouch and possible sack – ever present. On the top of the now blazing leaves and grass he placed the dry sticks – first the smaller ones, and then those of larger dimensions – until the hole was filled up to the brim – and over all he laid the piece of sod, originally cut from the surface, and which fitted as neatly as a lid.
His furnace being now finished and in full blast, the old trapper “hunkered” down close to its edge – in such a position as to embrace the fire between his thighs, and have it nearly under him. He then drew his old saddle-blanket over his shoulders, allowing it to droop behind until he had secured it under the salient points of his lank angular hips. In front he passed the blanket over his knees, until both ends, reaching the ground, were gripped tightly between his toes. The contrivance was complete; and there sat the earless trapper like a hand-glass over a plant of spring rhubarb – a slight smoke oozing through the apertures of the scant blanket, and curling up around his “ears” as though he was hatching upon a hotbed. But no fire could be seen, though Rube shivered no longer.
He soon found imitators. Garey had already constructed a similar furnace; and the others were soon warming themselves by this simple but ingenious device.
I did not disdain to avail myself of the extra “shaft” which the kind-hearted Garey had sunk for my accommodation; and having placed myself by its side, and drawn the ample robe over my shoulders, I felt as warm as if seated in front of a sea-coal fire!
Under other circumstances, I might have joined in the merriment produced among my companions by the ludicrous spectacle which we presented. A comic spectacle indeed; nine of us squatted at intervals over the ground, the blue smoke escaping through the interstices of our robes and blankets, and rising around our heads, as though one and all of us were on fire!
Wind, sleet, and darkness, continued throughout the whole night – cold wind, sharp icy sleet, and black darkness, that seemed palpable to the touch. Ever so eager, ever so fresh, we could not have advanced along the trail. Grand war-trail as it was, it could not have been traced under that amorphous obscurity, and we had no means of carrying a light, even had it been safe to do so. We had no lantern, and the norther with one blast would have whisked out a torch of pitch-pine.
We thought no more of going forward, until either the day should break or the wind come to a lull.
At midnight we replenished our subterranean fires, and remained on the ground. Hail, rain, wind, and darkness.
My companions rested their heads upon their knees, or nodding slept. No sleep for me – not even the repose of thought. Like some fevered sufferer on his wakeful couch. I counted the hours – the minutes. The minutes seemed hours.
Rain, hail, sleet, and wind seemed, like darkness itself, to belong to the night. As long as night lasted, so long continued they. When it came to an end, all vanished together – the norther had exhausted its strength.
A wild turkey – killed before nightfall – with some steaks of the peccary-pork, furnished us with an ample breakfast.
It was hastily cooked, and hastily eaten; and as the first streak of dawn appeared along the horizon, we were in our saddles, and advancing upon the trail.
